Biggest Losers for 2012: Republicans

Nothing on taxes. Nothing on gun control. Nothing on climate change. Nothing on gay marriage. Nothing on immigration reform (or an incremental, piece-by-piece approach, which will result in nothing). It’s a very odd situation when the losing party is the party refusing to negotiate. It may be how you disrupt, but it is not how you govern, or how you ever hope to regain a majority. – Mark McKinnon

BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Mark McKinnon was so distraught he begged Santa for a “new GOP.” The things I wanted for Christmas were a lot easier for my hubby Mark to deliver!

The GOP is so bad and it’s easy to count the ways.

Character Will McAvoy did it in the new HBO show The Newsroom. Ã‚Â Here are some of the issues that stuck out to Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, which McAvoy laid out in the finale of the first season.

Ideological purity

Compromise as weakness

A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism

Denying science

Unmoved by facts

Undeterred by new information

A hostile fear of progress

Demonization of education

Need to control women’s bodies

Severe xenophobia

Tribal mentality

Intolerance of dissent

Pathological hatred of US government

I don’t agree with all of these and I even think there are a few more. Ã‚Â Starting with the pathological fear that opportunity to get ahead be spread across the American population, which begins with shoring up the middle class and that can’t happen without a living wage.

McKinnon was right to ask Santa for a “new GOP.” Unfortunately, Santa’s not a miracle worker and I doubt Jesus would be too impressed by Republicans and their penchant for sticking up for multi-millionaires.

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Actually, it looks like E pluribus unum might be the bigest looser–thanks to the Republicans. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/26/178418/us-will-reach-federal-debt-limit.html “WASHINGTON — The government will reach the $16.4 trillion debt limit Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders Wednesday, adding a new and possibly dramatic wrinkle to negotiations aimed at averting the “fiscal cliff.” The news came as President Barack Obama and the Senate prepared to return to Washington on Thursday, and Republican leaders in the House of Representatives conferred by phone Wednesday to plot strategy. If no alternatives are adopted, Bush-era income tax rates will expire at the end of the year… Read more »

If the American people asked for a “New GOP,” they did it several years ago, and it’s definitely delivered. It’s called the Modern Democratic Party. And while we and Stewart and Colbert are having a grand old time making fun of Grand Old Party, it’s policies are running the country more completely than ever.

Other than credibility, popularity and elections, what exactly have the Republicans lost? Their policies are alive and well and largely being promoted out of the White House. They are going to get cuts in entitlement programs while the Defense Department continues to make out great, and if the 2% get an increase in taxes, it will be to a rate that is barely noticeable.

I agree with jjamele. The Republicans are jerks, but they’re winning. The losers this year are progressives, many of whom spent a lot of time, energy, and money to elect the same corrupt and/or feckless people who have been doing this to us all along.

The GOP are jerks but they are winning is correct. Their issues stem from pure ignorance but what makes it even harder for me to accept is that we have people in this country who are so ignorant that they vote these ignoramuses in.

I’m so glad that the Democrats are kicking Republicans asses from coast-to-coast. Let’s count our booty, shall we: ~ We’ve adjusted the minimum-wage rate for inflation to 1960 levels. ~ Glass-Steagall is reinstated. ~ Universal Health care has been adopted. ~To give younger people at shot at landing that first job and to reduce chronic high unemployment levels just like in the Great Depression of 1930s with the creation of Social Security, Social Security retirement benefits eligibility has been lowered from age 65 to 55. ~ We reactivated our manned space flight program. ~ The twelve-step graduated income tax schedule… Read more »

Ah, come on! You know that’s not how politics works. It takes time, and of course, whenever there’s some progress there have to be at least two developments that counter that progress. You progressives are just too impatient. It’s eleventy dimensional chess – you have to wait to see who gets checkmated…